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Soldering Irons
Burn Hazard
This equipment is hazardous to the user or those around them, take care during use.Safety
Please clear up solder splashes/drops and wire clippings after soldering; that will reduce the chance of detritus causing shorts in equipment or projects, especially in other people's projects.
Never use a soldering iron on equipment that is connected to the mains - always disconnect it first. To minimise the chance of a static charge damaging a circuit, the iron's tip is connected to mains protective earth. Hence touching a node that isn't at that potential can cause large and damaging currents to flow.
Never “float an iron” by disconnecting the protective mains earth. * The TS100 and similar irons are floated by default. TBH, it's basically become common practice to float the earth on 'smart' soldering irons, so I'd suggest changing this to: Never assume an iron isn't floated.
Is it really necessary to state that one end is dangerously hot, and that molten solder splashing onto skin will cause scarring?
The Precision Gold A55KJ
This iron has a small conical tip that is suitable for soldering fine-pitch surface mount devices (SMD) and small through-hole components on PCBs. It is not suitable where large amounts of heat have to be dumped into the solder/components, for example a BNC or SMA connector, particularly if there is also a ground plane.
Location: shelves above soldering bench. The manual is in the “bankers box” also on those shelves.
There are now other precision irons that could usefully be documented.
Standard Irons
We have a wide selection of traditional “red hot poker” irons, typically 15W or 25W. These are suitable for through-hole components on PCBs, or where larger amounts of heat have to be quickly dumped into the components, e.g. large metal connectors, or ground planes
Location: crate on shelves by external wall.